Andromeda: Final Conflict
by MikeJaffa
Summary: In search of a cure for Harper's Magog infestation, the crew is drawn into the last battle of Earth's Final Conflict
1. Part 1

TITLE: Andromeda: Final Conflict

AUTHOR: MikeJaffa (originally published under MikeJoe)

SYNOPSIS: In search of a cure for Harper, the crew is drawn into the last battle of Earth's Final Conflict

CHARACTERS: Supposed to be a Beka Story, but everyone's involved

DISCLAIMER: GENE RODDENBERRY'S ANDROMEDA and GENE RODDENBERRY'S EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT are both owned by Tribune. I am not making any money off this, so please don't sue me. This story and... MOST of its guest characters are mine, so please ask before archiving it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: When Andromeda was first on the air, I thought that there would be a crossover with Earth: Final Conflict, and that might be how E:FC's story was resolved. But as Andromeda's second season began, I realized that wouldn't happen. So I decided t do it myself. I hadn't followed FINALE CONFLICT very closely and I wrote this only knowing how their last season started, so it's kind of an AU. It's also an AU for Andromeda in that I made up my own origin for Harper's data port. That said, I hope you like it. Let's bring it!

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_"...and we shall march to do battle in the dark'ning lands, pledging our lives to defeat evil and defend the realm... "_

-** Oath of the Shadow Cavalry, CY 57**

Rommie, the beautiful android avatar of the *Andromeda Ascendant,* and the tall, slim, black robot, circled each other, arms raised in guard positions, watching for openings, moving lightly and quickly. Her brain's many processors calculated possible attacks, made contingencies for responses, estimated timings, and evaluated her enemy's body language (such as it is for a machine).

Finally, she attacked, flashing across the gap and delivering a furious combination of kicks and punches. Any other adversary - even a Nietzschean like Tyr - would have fallen, but the ebony mechanism evaded her attack as if she were standing still and countered with a backhand to her head that knocked her off her feet.

The robot advanced on the fallen android. Though totally mechanical in nature, it still seemed to be gloating.

"Poor little avatar," it said. "You're not as good at this as you think you are, are you? Maybe you should forget this 'embodiment of a warship' game and find employment more suited to your talents. Say, in a cyberbrothel?"

Rommie's anger flared, and she directed it into action: Her legs scissored through the air, catching one of the robot's legs and taking it to the ground with a crash. Then she leapt on top of it and, screaming out her rage, rained punches down on its head until there was nothing left but a small pile of parts in a dent in the metal floor.

She'd won, but she didn't feel like celebrating.

"Am I interrupting?" Dylan Hunt said from the door of hydroponics. The *Andromeda's* captain was dressed in shorts and a tank top (emblazoned with the High Guard Academy team insignia), a basketball under his arm.

"No," Rommie said quickly, getting to her feet. "No, I was just done."

"I see... " Dylan said, his gaze sweeping over hydroponics as he advanced into the huge room. The deck was littered with the twisted, bent, shattered, and otherwise thoroughly destroyed bodies of her black, faceless maintenance robots. "Some would call this masochistic behavior, Andromeda."

"It was intended to be just the opposite. I've noticed how you and Tyr use physical activities to vent your frustrations. I engaged in hand-to-hand combat routines to see if that could work for me."

"Oh. Has it?"

"No."

"Uh-huh... Talking about a frustrating problem is another time-tested method of working through them, and would do a lot less property damage to my ship." (Although other robot bodies had already entered the room and were cleaning up the mess.) "Want to give that a try?"

"Well... " Rommie said. "It's about Harper."

"What's he done this time?" Dylan asked.

"What? Oh, nothing. Well, nothing he shouldn't be doing. In fact, he's directing his energies towards something constructive. He and Trance are in my VR matrix, investigating the Magog larvae. He seems truly committed to finding his own solution to his infestation."

"Then what... "

"It's about me, Dylan, and what I've done for him, or to him."

Dylan had been expecting this; he was surprised it hadn't come up sooner. "No one blames you for his being infested, Rommie."

"I do."

"It's not your fault. Harper was the one who activated that old personality... "

"I authorized that repair, Dylan. I should have known there would be risks involved. I should have taken precautions." She started pacing back and forth. "And then, what did that old persona - what did *I* do? Did it occur to me that there was something odd going on with a full crew vanishing and six strangers replacing them? Did I even think that maybe I should ask the one in the High Guard uniform what was up? NO! Complete the mission! Activate internal defenses! Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out!"

"Rommie... "

"And when the Magog came aboard... I still see it, Dylan, Tyr and Harper's last stand, back-to-back with just those two little knives against a whole hoard. Even if I could have stopped it, I didn't want to!" She stopped pacing; she was crying. "Why couldn't those monsters have just killed him and got it over with?"

Dylan moved to her side and put an arm around her shoulders. "And that's why you came down here to... beat up on yourself."

"No."

That caught Dylan off guard. "Then what?"

"I've been watching Harper and Trance work together over the past week. She not only helps him, but provides emotional support and empathy when he needs it."

"Of course; they're friends."

"Exactly."

"Jealous?"

"Oh, no, no, of course not. I'm glad she's there for him. But then it occurred to me, what if something happened to her? Could I fill her role, and provide him with the empathy she does? So I ran 127,814 simulations on just that question. The answer came back the same every time: NO. It's an unmitigated disaster no matter what variables I change."

"And this frustrates you because... "

"Because Harper and I know each other so well and in ways few other sentients can, so there should be *something* there, some basis for a genuine bond, but there doesn't seem to be anything. I yell at him, I threaten him, but I can't talk *to* him. Hell, I can count the number of times I've given him a compliment over the past 15 months without running out of fingers and toes. It's bad enough I almost got him killed and he's living his worst nightmare, but I can't even do something for him as simple as being a friend."

"Rommie... " Dylan said. "Life isn't a simulation. There's no equation for how things work between people. If you really want things to be different between you and Harper, you have to go in there and *do* it. That's the only way."

"You're right, Dylan. Thank you. I'll start right now."

And that was how the whole mess started.

/

/

Harper jumped when Rommie materialized next to his liver.

"Whatever it is, I didn't do it," he said quickly.

"No, I'm not here to accuse you of anything, Harper," the A. I.'s aspect said. "I just want you and Trance to know I'm available if you need help."

"Oh, thanks, Rommie," Trance said.

"Yeah," Harper said. He and Trance were surprised at Rommie being so forthcoming; they all seemed a bit awkward. Still... "Why don't you come over here and help me?" Harper asked.

"Sure." Rommie moved to Harper's side. They were standing in a giant, transparent, colored image of Harper's body, the six remaining Magog larvae standing out in stark relief, a red aura encircling each of the little parasites. Rommie put her hands in the air; virtual displays, like the ones Trance and Harper had been manipulating, appeared in the air in front of her.

"Ok, kiddies, say cheese," Harper sneered.

"Beginning scan," Rommie said. They manipulated their ethereal control panels; the red auras glistened, gleamed, and filled with static.

"It's not clearing up," Trance said.

"More power to it," Harper said.

"Harper - !" Rommie started to raise her voice but forced herself to calm down. "Harper, you have the scanner's beam at dangerous levels as it is. Going any higher risks injury or radiation poisoning."

"Like I'd mind Stinky and T. B. glowing in the dark?" Harper shot back. (Rommie cursed herself quietly - this was not going well.)

"Why not increase the resolution on the sensor?" Trance asked.

"Yes," Rommie said. "Trance, you calibrate the beam. 5% higher, no more. Harper, you calibrate the sensor array. And now that I think about it, I'll load in some enhancement subroutines, to make the best of the returns we do get."

They worked their displays, and the auras began to change; letters and numbers began to float in the air around them. But suddenly, an alarm sounded, the larvae blazed red, and Harper doubled over, screaming in pain as his virtual self vanished.

"The larvae - they're sensing the beam!" Trance said. "They're attacking him!"

"Terminating scan," Rommie said. "... Patient life signs returning to normal."

/

/

Still rubbing his stomach, Harper unplugged the jack from the connector in his neck. At a nearby table, Trance took off the VR headset as one of Andromeda's holograms appeared next to the exam table he was lying on.

"Feel better?" Rommie hoped it didn't sound like an accusation.

"As good as I can be with six monsters in my gut sending me hate mail," Harper said, slowly sitting up.

Trance passed a medical scanner over his stomach. "They've settled down again - don't bother with the inhaler."

"Still, is investigating the larvae's interface with your physiology worth the risks?" Rommie asked.

"It's gotta be - look at how they reacted!" Harper said. "I mean, c'mon Rom Doll, Magog biology is totally different from human - or from anybody's - so they shouldn't be able to infect me like I'm from the same biosphere, but they do. It would be as if I replaced your slipstream cores with the internal combustion engines off some '67 Chevys - old Earth calendar - and you could still access the stream."

"Hmm... " Rommie said thoughtfully. "What if someone else had solved that problem?"

"That's the first thing we checked, Rommie," Trance said, "but no one has."

"No *Commonwealth member* has," the hologram mused, "so maybe the answer lies beyond the Commonwealth. And I can do the search much more quickly than you. May I... ?"

Trance nodded; Rommie's eyes turned inward, searching...

...and suddenly she looked surprised!

"What?" Harper said.

"A hit," Rommie said, smiling. "And if my data is correct, one very close to home."

A control panel screen lit up. Harper crossed to it and read it. His jaw dropped. "And you mean... this could... "

"Looks like it," Rommie said.

"Where's Beka?"

"Aboard the *Maru.* Do you want me to contact her?"

"No, I'll do it. I love ya, Rommie. I owe ya one, big time!" He blew the hologram a kiss with a huge sweep of his arm.

"No charge," Rommie said as Harper almost fell over himself racing out of the diagnostic room.

"Rommie, show me that file again please?" Trance said, crossing to the same monitor. It lit again; she read the same information Harper had... but with a different reaction.

She frowned.

"Is there a problem?" Rommie asked.

"Not yet," Trance answered.

/

/

"Beka!?" Harper slammed against the counter in the *Eureka Maru*'s galley, trying to catch his breath. For once, his "kids" didn't make him pay for exerting himself.

"Up here!" Beka's voice came from the ship's cockpit. As Harper went forward, he saw that a section of the floor grating had been removed. Harper dropped down through the hole and found Beka Valentine, the ship's blonde captain and pilot, working on some of the equipment there.

"Hey, Tiger," she said, turning towards him with a smile. "What's up?"

"Oh, Beka, let me express my gratitude and appreciation to all Valentines ever, anywhere." He bowed several times, arms outstretched. "I will remain your humble and obedient servant forever!"

"Slow down, Harper - what's this all about?"

Harper stopped bowing, but his excitement was unabated. "I'll boil it down to one word, Boss - Taelons."

Beka recoiled as if that one word had hit her in the stomach. "Taelons?"

"Yeah. They did it, Beka! They elevated biotechnology to an art form; they engineered living creatures into weapons that could be integrated with human physiologies even though they were alien creatures from alien planets. Sound familiar?" Harper pointed at his stomach.

"Yeah," Beka said cautiously, "but the Taelons have been extinct for centuries. Any goodies they'd left behind probably got snapped up by Vedrans a long time ago."

"So everyone believes. But you know as well as I there are stories that the Taelon Mother Ship still exists, right? And according to Rommie, one Captain Ignatius Valentine - your proud poppa if I'm not mistaken - came as close as anyone did to finding it. This could be the end of the road, Beka! All we gotta do is look through your dad's logs, figure out where that puppy is, and go get it! Whaddya say?"

Beka didn't answer right away. She fidgeted, apparently distracted. Harper hadn't been sure what to expect, but it wasn't this, and he got a little worried.

"Beka?" he asked. "What's wrong? What's - ?"

"I need some air." Beka roughly pushed past Harper, climbed up the ladder to the deck, and hurried down to the galley where she paced back and forth, hands opening and closing.

Taelon Mother Ship, Taelon Mother Ship... why in the name of the Galactic Prime Meridian had he brought up the thrice-damned Taelon Mother Ship?

But it would be just like him, wouldn't it?

"Boss?" Finally catching up with her, Harper entered the galley. "Rebecca? Look, if I've upset you, I'm sorry. But at least tell me if- "

"No!" Beka snapped, finally stopping in her tracks. "I'm sorry, Seamus, but I can't help you."

"You sure? 'Cause Rommie says - "

"She's wrong."

"Rommie's never wrong," Harper said in a small voice, puzzled at the fury he seemed to be the brunt of.

"Oh!" Beka shouted. "So now you believe her instead of me?"

"What - I - uhh - "

"Or maybe you just prefer brunettes to blondes?" A thought, and the nanobots in Beka's hair changed it from blonde to Rommie's shade of black. "Is this it? Or do I also need big brown eyes and pouty, red lips, too?"

"BEKA! Wha'd I do? I just want to know - "

"Now you listen, and you listen good," Beka snarled, getting nose-to-nose with Harper. "There will be no more talk of the Taelon Mother Ship while you are a member of my crew, do you hear me? It stops now! Not another word."

"Beka, please - "

"NOT. ANOTHER. WORD."

"Just let me look at your dad's logs, see if it confirms - "

"FINE!" Beka shouted. She grabbed Harper by the shirt and flung him towards the airlock door. He almost lost his balance.

"That's it!" she yelled. "Harper, *you're fired!* Now, get off my ship!"

"WHAT!? Beka - "

"Go! Go and play I dunno what you play with your windup girl friend but go."

"Boss... " Harper was crying.

"I won't ask you again," Beka growled. She drew her pistol and flipped the safety off with her thumb as she aimed it at the ceiling.

"Ok... " Harper blubbered. "I'm going."

Only after the airlock doors had closed behind him did Beka turn off her pistol and holster it.

/

/

The *Andromeda* knew there was something seriously wrong the instant Harper stepped away from the *Maru.*

When he was part way across the hangar, one of her holograms appeared in his path. "Harper! What happened in there?"

Harper tried to control himself long enough to speak. "Rommie... I... I'm out of a job."

"What do you mean?"

"Beka fired me."

"WHAT!?"

Harper explained what had happened as he tried to calm his tears; Andromeda, for her part, found herself wishing her hologram could hold him.

"Harper... will you be all right?"

"I dunno... I guess so... It's just, I wish I knew... "

"Why don't you go to the officer's mess? I'll prepare a snack for you. Ok? A made-to-order-Seamus-Special, whatever you want."

"Yeah, sure. Sounds great."

"I'll talk to Beka. I'm sure this is all an unfortunate misunderstanding and we can sort it out. Don't worry about it... "

/

/

Beka, her hair once again blonde, blew steam off her tea and took a sip. She had finally calmed down, with a lot of effort, and realized she had been a royal Vedran's behind with Harper. She hoped to talk with him, apologize, and set things right... later, after she had her wits about her, after she could explain without going through the roof. All she needed was time to heal.

It didn't look like she was going to get it. The airlock doors opened and Rommie entered. The android avatar of the larger ship the *Maru* was birthed in took a few paces into the galley, agitated as she shifted her weight from one foot to another, an unreadable expression on her face.

Beka turned back to her tea. "Go 'way, Rommie."

"Or what? You'll shoot me, too?"

"Huh?"

"Harper told me everything. I couldn't leave him alone until I was sure he wouldn't try to kill himself. How could you, Beka? Do you know what you mean to him? Do you realize what you've done to him?"

"Rommie, please - "

"He told me, not so long ago, he wouldn't know what to do if something happened to you, and you just go and treat him like a pile of Magog poop you found on your shoes. Why!? In the name of the Vedran Empress, WHY?"

"I have my reasons. I don't want to discuss them right now. Give me some time, Rommie, please."

"Ok, I think we can table that issue for now. Can you answer some questions? I'll leave if you answer all of them."

Beka thought she could handle that. "All right."

"Did your father look for the Taelon Mother Ship?" Rommie asked.

"Yes," Beka answered.

"Did he find it?"

"No."

"Is there information in his logs that can helps us find it?"

"I dunno. I was barely up to your knee at the time. Maybe."

"Will you help us look for the Taelon Mother ship now?"

This was the hardest one of all: "No. Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"I have my reasons."

"Which are?"

"None of your business."

Rommie slammed her hand down on the counter, leaving an impression, and started pacing her cage, while Beka hoped to ignore her by focusing on the tea.

It didn't work.

"I don't understand you," Rommie said, visibly upset. "If it were Dylan - "

"I'm not Dylan."

"Harper's your engineer! He's your friend! Hell, he's practically family! Why won't you do what you can to save him?"

"Rommie - "

"DAMN YOU, BEKA VALENTINE!" the android raged. "WHAT KIND OF A STARSHIP CAPTAIN ARE YOU!?"

Beka slammed down the tea, jumped off her stool, and got in Rommie's face. "Don't you DARE take that tone with me, missy!" she snarled. "I'm a damn good captain. I was saving my crew's necks long before I found you and that overgrown bellhop, and I'll be saving them long after the Magog blow you and him to hell!"

Rommie just stared at Beka, stunned.

"Beka?" Trance said from just inside the airlock. Neither she nor Rommie had heard her come in. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Rommie said. "I'm done here." She pushed past Trance and left the *Maru.*

"Hello, Trance," Beka said. "Goodbye, Trance."

"Beka - " Trance started.

"Trance. In the last twenty minutes, I have almost shot Harper and had a shouting match with a warship. Please, I don't want to throw down with you, too."

"Fine," Trance said with that level, even, penetrating stare of hers. "Don't shoot me and don't yell at me. Just tell me - what happened when your father went looking for the Taelon Mother Ship?"

Beka wandered towards the bunk area. "Trance, please - "

"It's very important, Beka," Trance said.

"Know something I don't?" Beka asked.

"I know it is very important we find that ship." Still that penetrating stare. "I know we will need you to do it. But you need to get past what happened the first time."

"Will it save Harper? Really?"

Trance shrugged, but her gaze was unrelenting.

"Yeah, right," Beka said, sitting down on one of the bunks. Trance came over and stood opposite her.

"What happened was, Mommy was sick," Beka said. "I don't remember what was wrong with her, just that she was sick all the time and she wasn't getting any better. We spent most of the money we made on salvage and hauling jobs and... other things... and used it to pay for all these doctors we kept chasing down, but you know how it is? None of them helped.

"Then Daddy started hearing all these miraculous stories about the Taelon Mother Ship and its wondrous biotech. He changed, he... I was too young to understand obsession, but that's what happened, it became his obsession. All I heard about, morning, noon, and night, Taelon Mother Ship. I began to hate it, and I wasn't the only one. Uncle Sid got tired of hearing of it, and they went their separate ways until... well, until we stopped looking for it. But worse - I realized this when I looked over his debts - we turned down several good jobs just so he could stay on his mission to find that bloody mother ship. It explained a lot. Times were always hard, but then, they were *really* hard." She shook her head.

"So, what happened?" Trance asked, sitting down on the opposite bunk.

"What you'd expect," Beka said. "We were racing from place to place again, but instead of chasing doctors, we were chasing leads. Any scrap of information, any hint of a rumor, anything he heard from a drunk in a bar or a bum begging in a street on some backwater world, we went after it. For months. No money, Mommy getting worse every day. And no magical Taelon Mother Ship, either. Every single lead was a dead end. EVERY ONE." She stopped and looked down at the floor.

"Then what?" Trance asked quietly. "Beka - "

"Mommy died." Beka looked up, tears rolling down her cheeks. "A good part of a year looking for a miracle cure and she still died. Her funeral was an open cargo bay door during a waste dump; we couldn't afford anything else. And Daddy... changed again. He seemed all right; he patched things up with Sid and we got some good jobs again. But that's when it started to go wrong. I think, that's what planted the seed... it just grew and grew and consumed him. And eventually, he died."

"And you blamed the Taelon Mother Ship?"

"Childish, I know, but yeah. I never wanted to hear of that thing again, and I promised myself I wouldn't come within an A. U. of it except to ram a nuke up its tail pipe... if it has one." She sniffled. "Poor Harper, comes in happier than I've ever seen him, like he just found the cure in a tech manual he just didn't bother to read too carefully the first time, and with three little words, brings it all back. And I come down on him like Magog on a puppy farm. Maybe Rommie had a point; what kind of captain am I?"

"A good one; you care."

"Yeah. I think I gotta tone down the tough love thing, though, don't you?"

"Beka... " Trance said. "What happened to your dad, I'm sorry. I feel bad for you, really I do. And I understand why you might not want to help this time. But Harper is very much alive. He's nowhere near terminal yet; there's still time if we start NOW. Please, for his sake... look at your dad's logs. See what's there."

"I can look," Beka said. "I think there was one or two more places we were going to try, but after Mommy died, we didn't bother. And I was glad." She smiled. "Maybe two more blind alleys, but what the heck, worth a try, huh?"

"It'll work out," Trance said. "I have faith in you."

"That makes one of us. And Trance, if you see Harper... ?"

"I'll tell him, Beka. Don't worry. I'll tell him."

/

/

Beka cautiously emerged from the *Maru's* airlock, a flexie in her hand, and descended the steps to the hangar floor.

Nothing happened.

She took a few steps forward and stopped.

Still nothing.

"Ok," Beka said, "not fried as soon as I leave my ship. Good sign, yes?" She took a deep breath. "Andromeda?"

Rommie's hologram blazed out of scan lines in front of her. "Yes, Beka?"

NOT 'Captain Valentine.' Another good sign? Beka hoped so.

"I, uh... " Beka said. "Rommie, I just want to say... I'm sorry, for what I said earlier. I just, uh... "

"Trance has informed me of what happened to your family. My sympathies."

"Thanks."

"And I feel I owe you an apology, too. You and the others... you're all I have left, after... I suppose I get a little bloody-minded about what I have left."

"No problem." Beka forced a smile and raised the flexie. "Anyway, some good came of it, I hope. There was one more lead my dad was going to try. It may be another dead end and the trail's probably gone cold, but I can show it to Dylan... "

"I want you to do more than that, Beka." Now Rommie had the penetrating stare, as forceful, in it's own way, as Trance's. "I want you to promise me you will continue the search for the Taelon Mother Ship until you find it, or until you have proven every lead to be a blind alley. For Harper's sake, if not for mine." Andromeda knew what she was asking.

So did Beka.

"All right, Rommie," Beka said. "I promise."

/

/

Dylan leaned back in his office chair and took a long look at Trance, Beka, and the *Andromeda's* humanoid avatar.

"The Taelon Mother Ship," he said. "Have you all gone completely insane?"

"I know what I have is thin - " Beka started.

"Try impossible," Dylan said. "Even in my day, most serious scholars said it was most likely that the TMS had been towed to Tarn Vedra and dismantled three thousand years ago. So even if there's anything left of it, we can't get to it. Has academia changed that much during the Long Night?"

"What's left of it, no," Beka said. "But I can point you to some serious scholars - including a Perseid who has a whole university named after him - who believed that it was most likely that you and Rommie went over to the Nietzscheans three hundred years ago, and the stories about you being frozen in time were High Guard propaganda. Or didn't you wonder why no one else found you?"

"And I think that Perseid still says you're a fake," Trance said.

"And on a related point, Dylan," Rommie said, "we *are* talking about the Shadow Cavalry. They were doing black ops and disinformation campaigns when humanity still had bronze swords. It's not unlikely that they could have encouraged the belief that the TMS no longer existed while it had been stashed somewhere else."

Dylan sighed. "Let me see your information again."

Beka handed him the flexie; he read it and sighed.

"'Thin' would be a complement," Dylan said. "This is barely above a rumor."

"I know," Beka said.

"And the assertion that this individual met - "

"*I know.*"

"I don't know, Beka. We have too many prior commitments - our meeting with the Shipper's Guild, for one. And then there's our summit with -"

"Dylan, right now we're only three jumps from Infinity; I can be there and back in under a day if I give myself a coffee I. V."

"I don't know if I can spare you for that long. Are you *sure* this isn't a dead end?"

Beka paused, then turned to Trance and Rommie. "Guys - give us a minute?"

"Privacy mode engaged," Rommie said. She and Trance left.

"What is it?" Dylan asked.

"Dylan, Rommie - "

"ROMMIE instigated this?"

"Yes. Trance said she's got very interested in helping Harper lately."

"Me and my big mouth."

"Sorry?"

"Nothing," Dylan said. "You were saying?"

"Yes," Beka said. "Rommie made me promise to search for the Taelon Mother Ship, no matter what."

"I see."

Seconds crawled by as they looked at each other.

"Well, Captain Valentine," Dylan said. "You leave me no choice. Andromeda! Disengage privacy mode."

One of Rommie's holograms appeared next to Beka.

"Send a courier message to the Shipper's Guild," Dylan instructed the A.I.'s image. "Tell them we will be unavoidably detained and will have to reschedule our meeting."

"No - wait - " Beka said. "Dylan, just let me go in the *Maru.* I'll take Trance and Rev with me - "

"You heard Rommie," Dylan said, standing up. "If this lead of yours has even a chance of panning out, then most likely you'll be following in the footsteps of the Shadow Cavalry. That's not where angels fear to tread, Beka; that's where any angel with more than half a brain doesn't even bother to find a map for. Your best bet will be if we all go with you."

"And if it's another dead end?"

"Then we get an unscheduled beach party." Dylan flashed a smile.

"Embarrassing."

"Not as embarrassing as letting you go off alone, and having a courier inform me they need to have a mutilated body identified. No arguments, Beka. We're going."

"Damn. Now I know how people feel when I get pigheaded."

"Andromeda," Dylan said. "Alert the crew. All hands, report to Command."

/

/

Beka and Dylan were almost at Command when Harper popped out of an intersection in their path.

"You go ahead, Dylan," Beka said. "We'll catch up."

Dylan's gaze traveled between his first officer and his engineer, but he continued on the way to the bridge. When he'd vanished 'round the far corner, Beka found she couldn't ignore Harper any longer.

"Hi," she said.

"Hey," he answered.

"Harper... I'm sorry."

"It's ok, Boss."

"No, it's not ok. I completely lost it, and I shouldn't have, not with you, not after what you've been through."

"Yeah, well, I figure if you came running to me, telling me it would be really great if we went back to the Magog World Ship, I'd be less than thrilled."

"I guess, but still, I really am sorry, Harper... " Her voice broke a little - just a little - as she hugged him. "And I'll make it up to you. I promise."

They held that pose for a few moments, for a lifetime, both sniffling as they finally disengaged.

"So, ah... " Beka said. "I have an opening for an engineer on the *Maru.* Want your old job back?"

"I dunno, Beka," Harper said in a teasing tone that relieved her more than any words. "I was kinda getting used to the idea of being able to devote ALL my genius, energy, and attention to Andromeda, Beloved Goddess of the Spaceways."

Beka playfully arched her eyebrows. "Oh, really?"

"Of course. After all, Rommie's a brunette."

Beka swatted him on the back of the head with her flexie.

/

/

Tyr and Rev were the last to straggle into the bridge, at which time Dylan explained to his little crew that they would be searching for the Taelon Mother Ship... and why they would all be going on the trip.

"What is the Shadow Cavalry?" Trance asked. "I mean, if they were all Vedrans, they'd all be dead by now, right?"

"Probably, yes," Dylan said. "But that doesn't make this situation any less dangerous.

"The Shadow Cavalry was an all-Vedran intelligence gathering and clandestine operations organization attached to the Vedran Royal Family. They pretty much were High Guard intelligence until Humanity entered the Commonwealth. The story goes that Vedran Nationalists in their ranks opposed admitting humans to the Cavalry, so the Argosy Special Operations Service was formed. Officially, ASOS supplanted the Cavalry as the Commonwealth's main intelligence gathering arm, and they assumed a ceremonial role on Tarn Vedra. Unofficially, they gave ASOS chief Admiral Stark the creeps... and *nothing* gave Admiral Stark the creeps.

"The important thing here is that, despite what is written in the All Systems Library, the Shadow Cavaliers were Earth's true first contact with the Commonwealth. No one knows why they were hunting the Taelons, but that lead them to arrive roughly one hundred years after the Atavus had conquered the planet. They backed what resistance there was still left, and engineered the rebellion that unseated the Atavus and their allies and paved the way for the Mentoring mission that is officially regarded as first contact. That means the Shadow Cavalry got a hold of whatever the Taelons and the Atavus left behind, including the Mother Ship. Whatever happened to it, you can bet it was heavily guarded, and maybe even booby-trapped."

"Now, you'd figure that the Vedrans would have taken all their toys back to Tarn Vedra," Beka said, "taken them apart, and we'd be lucky if we found an invoice for the removal of the scaffolding, right? But there've always been stories that the Vedrans, never wanting to think in straight lines..."

"And the Shadow Cavalry thought in Slipstream Routes," Rommie put in.

"…That they took the Mother Ship and hid it somewhere else," Beka went on. "No one knows where, and no one ever found it, but the stories never went away. And that's where... my father came in." She kept it together as she again recounted her father's ultimately fruitless search for it.

"...and that means we have really only one lead left," Beka said at length, " - and anyone who says this is the great grandmother of all long shots would be right."

Beka tabbed a control panel, displaying her flexie's data on one of the huge main screens. Everyone focused on the portrait of a young white man, about Harper's age, with dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, a wreck of a nose and a penetrating stare, but no one noticed that Harper seemed particularly interested.

"His name is Bill Beckett," Beka said. "Seems he traded in a Wayist Monk's habit for life as a beach bum on Infinity Atoll, or he had as of thirty years ago, anyway."

"Thirty YEARS?" Tyr said. "Granted, I am not the resident expert on the Taelon's conveyance, but based on the... limited experience I have had in locating people, would I be wrong to assume the trail may have gone cold by now?"

"No you wouldn't," Beka said. "And it gets worse." She tabbed more controls and another portrait appeared on another large screen, this time a hairless humanoid with light, almost reflective skin, deep blue eyes, and an almost placid expression.

A Taelon.

"On top of supposedly *seeing* the Taelon Mother Ship," Beka said, "our Mr. Beckett is supposed to have actually met this gentleman... or whatever... Da'an, one time known on Earth as a Companion."

"Wait a sec," Harper said. "Wasn't he, I dunno, killed or something?"

"He met his fate when the Atavus arose," Tyr said.

"And that's why Daddy saved this lead for last," Beka said. "'Cause you have to believe *two* 'impossible' things for this to work - that the Taelon Mother Ship is still in one piece *and* one of the guys who rode it to Earth is likewise."

"He was a being of energy," Rev Bem said. The Magog monk pondered for a moment. "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. He could still be alive."

"He would be very old, though," Tyr said. "Even the Taelons died of old age."

"Look, I said this was a long shot, and I wasn't kidding," Beka said. "But I... made a promise I would find it, and that means, going to talk to this guy, if I can find him."

"Sounds like fun," Trance piped up.

"But how do we begin to find him?" Rev asked.

"That's not the question we should ask," Harper said. "The question is, can we get a group discount on lunch?"

"Excuse me?" Dylan said. "You know something about this gentleman, Mr. Harper?"

"Know him? Dylan, I'd know that face anywhere! That's Big Bill Beckett, owner of Big Bill's Diner, THE primo surfer hangout for *serious* surfers on Infinity Atoll." Harper smacked his lips. "I can almost taste one of his grease burgers. Classic Terran cuisine! And just half a klick away from some of the best waves ever seen. If we can't find the Taelons, at least we can get some good eats outta this. I'm sold, Bek! Are we there yet?"

/

/

Allowing an extra day so Beka could be rested on arrival, the *Andromeda* was in orbit of Infinity two days later. Dylan decided Harper would be the one to make first contact with Mr. Beckett... and not say too much over the com.

"C'Mon, Boss," Harper said. "Who could be listening?"

"Exactly."

"I have Mr. Beckett," Rommie said.

"Close on Harper," Dylan said.

Bill Beckett's face filled one of the big main screens. The face was the same as in the portrait, but obviously, older; the dirty blonde hair had grayed and was much thinner on top.

"Who's this, then?" Beckett said in a deep, gravely voice. "Seamus? Seamus Harper? Is that you?"

"The one, the only," Harper said.

"Not like you to come to Infinity off season, Lad."

"Well, I was in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd stop by. You open?"

"For Infinity's favorite Super Genius, I, of course, am always open. Come on down, son!"

"I'll see you then." The screen blanked.

"Nice guy," Dylan said.

"And cute, in an older-grayer-growly sort of way," Trance put in.

"Beka, Harper, Rommie, with me," Dylan said. "We'll go down in the *Maru.* Tyr, Trance, Rev - "

"Protect the *Andromeda,*" Tyr said, "watch your backs - as if we can do much from up here - and hope that things work out very improbably and not come to a bad end."

"That's the spirit," Dylan said, "good ol' Nietzschean optimism."

/

/

As the *Maru* circled to find a spot to land next to Big Bill's Diner, Beka couldn't help but notice how far off the main drag it was. It was on a plot of land at the end of a dirt track, facing the ocean, the beach on one side and grasslands on the other.

"And you said this guy's popular?" Beka said. "How do you get to it?"

"Swim or walk down the beach," Harper said. "Like I said, it's popular with *serious* surfers."

Beka landed the *Maru* next to the diner, and they left the small freighter and walked across the grass to the front door. (Dylan noticed several skimmers coming along the dirt track in their direction. A lot of off-season business? He alerted Rommie to watch it.)

Harper was first to the front door of the rectangular building that looked like it had been fashioned from a cargo container. The door opened as they reached it, and Big Bill stepped out. He was just a hair shorter than Dylan... and a bit wider. Too many "grease burgers" had left their mark.

"'Ello, 'ello," Big Bill growled, shaking Harper's hand vigorously. "Well come in, come in!" (Dylan noticed those skimmers were encircling the building as they went in; he nudged Rommie and whispered that it might be a good idea to secure the *Maru* by remote control.)

"Glad you're open, Bill," Harper said.

"Aw, no trouble," Bill said. "I'm always open - I don't mind the quiet when all you young hell-raisers go back to your lives. So, who're your friends?"

"Big Bill Beckett," Harper said, "owner of Big Bill's, *the* primo eating establishment in known space, allow me to introduce Captain Beka Valentine..."

"Hi," Beka said.

"Heard a lot about you," Bill said, shaking her hand; "pleasure."

"...Captain Dylan Hunt... "

"ANOTHER Captain?" Bill said, reaching to shake Dylan's hand. "Must keep the lad busy, eh?"

"We try," Dylan said. (And he noticed several individuals in suspiciously long coats, some of them red, entering the diner and quietly taking seats at booths. Other individuals were wandering around outside.)

"...and last but NEVER least," Harper said, "Andromeda."

"What, like the ship?" Bill asked.

"Exactly," Rommie said. "I *am* the ship."

"A ship's avatar," Bill breathed. "Crikey, I feel like I'm in the presence of royalty. You got the Vedran Empress in the *Maru,* too?"

"Mr. Beckett," Dylan said. "I'm afraid this isn't a social call. We came here to ask for your help."

"Whatever I can do, Captain, for king and country and all."

"Actually, it's for Mr. Harper. Recently, he was infested with Magog eggs."

"Really!?" Bill's head snapped to Harper.

"Yeah," Harper said, pulling his inhaler, on a chain around his neck, out from under his shirt. "I've been taking this stuff to control 'em, but who knows how long it will work?"

"Oh, God, I'm sorry, Lad," Bill said. "But what can I do?"

"That depends on whether this is true," Beka said, handing him a flexie, a little nervous. If this had all been a wild goose chase...

Bill read the flexie and looked up with a serious look on his face. "Yes, it's true."

"It is?" Beka yelped.

"It is," Rommie said. "I knew that when we walked in here. There's a residual Taelon energy signature all over him."

"'S'what happens when you spend a lot of time with one of them gentlemen," Bill said. "And Da'an and me, we had some long talks, we did."

"So you'll help us?" Dylan asked. This was going almost too well...!

"Captain Hunt, if it were anybody else, I'd tell them to stick their heads in the ocean and even help. But for my friend Seamus, yes, Iwill help you."

"I am so glad to hear you can be so accommodating, Mr. Beckett," said a woman's voice from the booths behind them. They all spun to see the suspicious individuals Dylan had noted earlier had stood up. One of them, a woman in a red long coat, was apparently their leader. But that wasn't what got their attention: With shoulder-length black hair; deep brown eyes; pouty, red lips; and olive skin...

The woman in the red coat could have been Rommie's twin.

"So, you are the *Andromeda's* famed avatar," the woman said; even her voice was a lot like Rommie's. "Tell me - have you always had that appearance?"

"Yes," Rommie said.

"Indeed? Shame." Her eyes flicked in Harper's direction. "I'd thought someone was flattering me. Ah, well."

"Hello, Lizzie," Beka said. "I didn't see any rocks when we landed, or did I miss the one you and your posse crawled out from under?"

"Bekaaaaa. I'm disappointed, truly I am. I have always tried to respect you as a member of our profession, even if we are competitors. Don't I get a nice introduction to your new friends?"

Beka inhaled; she hated it when Lizzie was right. "Captain Dylan Hunt, Captain Elizabeth Loveless."

"The Red Lady," Dylan said; he didn't sound flattered to be in her presence.

"Mistress of the ship by the same name," Elizabeth said with a smile. "I'm pleased my reputation has preceeded me."

"And let's not forget Lizzie's cybernetic right-hand-man and go-go dancer, Rutger," Harper said, indicating the attractive, middle-aged man with high cheekbones on Elizabeth's right, sporting his own red coat. "How's it shaking, Rut?"

"I am seeing to my lady's needs, Master Harper," Rutger answered. "*All* her needs. Yourself?"

"Ok - fine," Beka broke in. "Old home week's over. Somehow, Lizzie, I don't think you dropped in for coffee and a grease burger."

"No, although someone once sang the praises of this place's Terran cuisine." All business, she turned to Bill. "Mr. Beckett. I, too, am interested in the information you possess. Not only does my original offer still stand, but I am in a position to double it, or triple it, if you wish."

"I told your errand boys my answer already, Red Lady," Bill growled. "What part of 'no chance in hell' do you not understand?"

"Shame."

"Y'know, it sounds like we all want the same thing here," Dylan ventured. "So why don't we just all put aside our differences and work together?"

"Nothing would make me happier - Dylan, is it?" Elizabeth said, " - but in my line of work, you don't attain what I have by cooperating. Furthermore, my employer and I believe that the phrase 'live witness' is an oxymoron. Sorry." She turned to her men. "Take the proprietor alive; kill the others."

"Great!" Dylan said, he and his shipmates drawing their weapons and firing as they grabbed Bill and dove for cover. They made it around the luncheon counter and into the kitchen (where Bill grabbed a gauss rifle propped up near the door) barely ahead of a hail of smart bullets.

"Harper, Bill - cover the back door!" Dylan barked.

"On it!" Harper said. He and Bill went to the back and began moving tables and chairs in front of the back door.

"Is it always this exciting with your friends?" Bill asked.

"Are you kidding?" Harper said. "This is a slow day."

Meanwhile, Dylan and Beka were firing back at Elizabeth's "posse" through the kitchen door.

"Rommie," Dylan said, "can you raise... ?"

"I'm sorry, Dylan; they're jamming my transmissions."

"Any way around that?"

"Maybe. Harper! Loveless' cyborg second - what's his strength level?"

"Up there, Rom-Doll - H2 or H3."

"Perfect." She turned to Dylan and Beka. "Cover me!"

With Beka and Dylan providing cover fire, Rommie charged out of the kitchen. She soaked up effectors like they were so many bee stings and made straight for Rutger, jerking him to his feet and nailing a punch to his face.

Rutger acted almost as if he hadn't noticed. "Is that the best you have, little machine?"

"I was going to ask you the same question, Big Fella. C'Mon, show me what ya got!"

It was bizarre - an android and a cyborg having a fist-fight while a gun battle raged around them. And Rutger was strong enough he could have broken Rommie in half... if she was actually playing to win, instead of for an opportunity. She let Rutger force her back towards the windows lined up with the *Maru,* and saw her chance when he fired off a powerful kick to her chest. She rode its momentum and sailed backwards through the window, shattered glass falling around her as she turned the fall into a series of increasingly larger somersaults that carried her towards and over the skimmers.

"Well, Rommie's away," Beka said. "I hope she knows what she's doing."

"Hey, she thinks like me," Dylan said.

"So you see our problem," Beka and Harper chorused, but the need to cover from a renewed hail of gunfire cut the levity off.

The gun battle raged on. Dylan and Beka really couldn't see to what extent they were hurting their adversaries, and the bullets raging thought the air were taking their toll on Bill's beloved diner - pots and pans crashed to the floor, light fixtures were blown out, and Harper immediately worried when it sounded like the gas range was taking hits. Then someone began to push the back door open. Harper and Bill had barely time to train their guns there when two big men in black coats forced it open. More combatants were coming around the counter, towards the kitchen. Dylan and the others were pinned down and out-flanked...

...and a new storm of bullets streamed in through the back door, cutting down the new intruders and forcing the men in front to back off. Dylan and the others could just see the *Maru* hovering behind the diner, bobbing back and forth as it sprayed the area with rounds from two nose-mounted machine-gun turrets.

"C'Mon!" Rommie's voice sounded over the ship's external loudspeakers, an emergency hatch under the nose opening. Dylan, Bill, Harper, and Beka raced across the gap, the *Maru's* machine guns keeping Elizabeth's men from getting new shots off, and they made it up the emergency hatch; the ship began to peal off as the hatch began to close.

Inside the diner, Rutger digested radio reports through his cybernetic implants. "They are getting away my lady; apparently, the android tipped the - " He broke off. "My lady - gas!"

Elizabeth, Rutger, and their remaining men raced out the diner's front door barely moments before it went up in a huge explosion. But that barely distracted the Red Lady; her attention was focused on the point of light in the sky that was the *Eureka Maru.* "Our associates are in pursuit, Rutger?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Then summon the ship; I would be there for the kill."

/

/

In the Maru's cockpit, Rommie back flipped out of the pilot's chair, and Beka fell into it, strapping herself in and assuming control of her ship. "Someone please tell me that from here on in, things will go- "

The *Maru* rocked as it came under fire.

"Ok, scratch that," Beka said. "Anyone know who our new dance partners are?"

Harper consulted his control panel. "Looks like Nissari frigates and fighters, Boss."

"Nissari?" Dylan said. He was aware of the small, largely human dictatorship in the Milky Way Galaxy, if only because he had passed it over as a candidate for Commonwealth membership. "What do the Nissari want with Mr. Beckett... ?"

/

/

"Obviously, access to Taelon technology, though not for so altruistic a purpose," Tyr said. Manning the command podium on the *Andromeda's* bridge, he had heard Dylan over the com.

"Whatever the motive," Rev Bem said from the sensor station, "we have Nissari frigates closing on us."

"We could use a little help," Dylan said, "if you can manage it."

Of course, Tyr could manage it.

"Ship!" he said. "Deploy electronic countermeasures to confuse the incoming frigates. And fire missiles on the ships pursuing the *Maru.* Make ready the slipstream drive."

/

/

Andromeda's missiles took out some of the *Maru's* pursuers, and the survivors pealed off... but not before scoring some direct hits.

"Crap!" Beka said.

"Let me guess," Dylan said. "Main power out, slipstream drive gone..."

"No, those things are ok, but *sublight* power has been cut in half. I can't get us back to the *Andromeda,* unless... " She pulled back on the controls, and the Maru pitched up, sharply. "Tyr? Rommie? I'm putting everything we've got into a ballistic trajectory almost straight up. You guys will have to catch us before we hit the atmosphere again."

/

/

"Beka, it's too dangerous!" Trance turned to Tyr. "We won't get to them before they reach apogee; we'll be flying down at the planet by the time we catch up to them... "

"Then I suggest you do what you can to ensure a perfect, possible future in which it works out," Tyr said, programming the *Andromeda's* flight controls.

/

/

Between missiles and electronic countermeasures, the *Andromeda* had insured none of the Nissari ships were in a position to interfere as the *Maru* arced out the atmosphere... and began to descend again. The *Andromeda* caught up with the smaller ship, and Beka skillfully manipulated the docking thrusters to put them down relatively smoothly in the hangar.

Dylan lead Beka, Harper, Rommie, and Bill on a race to the bridge. "I could use some good news," he called as they surged through the big doors.

"The good news is our pursuers are not giving chase," Tyr said. "The bad news is we built up too much momentum catching you - if they think we are going to crash, they are probably right."

"This is bad, very bad," Beka said, taking her place at the flight controls, "unless... Rommie, full AHEAD!"

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Dylan said.

"Hit the atmosphere at the right angle, skip off like a stone," Beka said.

"Hit at the wrong one, we fry," Harper said.

"In that case, Mr. Harper," Dylan said, "perhaps you would care to configure the external AG field to protect us from atmospheric heating?"

"Already on it, Boss!"

/

/

As they watched *The Red Lady,* a red, sleek, delta-winged starship almost three times the size of Beka's *Eureka Maru,* hover over a spot next to the remains of Big Bill's Diner and prepare to touch down, Rutger digested more reports for Captain Loveless. "Our friends have broken off their pursuit, my lady."

"What! Why?"

"They say the High Guard ship is out of control and on a death dive into the atmosphere."

"Show me!"

Rutger held his hand out, palm up, and a hologram depicting the *Andromeda's* course appeared in the air above it.

Elizabeth turned livid. "The fools! Why am I not surprised they don't see it?"

/

/

The buffeting got worse and worse, the red glow of atmospheric entry heating filling the big main screens, and Harper could have sworn it was feeling warm on the bridge.

"C'mon, c'mon!" Beka urged. "Skip already."

"AG field near overload," the ship's voice said. "Outer hull temperatures entering red zone."

"Still praying there, Rev?" Harper said; the magog monk nodded.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Beka said, but she was too busy with the controls to smile.

"AG field... Hold... " the ship said. "Atmospheric stresses leveling off - correction, falling. Calculating new vectors... hull temperature dropping... "

"YES!" Beka said. "Ok, Rommie, full power to sublight engines! Make for the nearest slipstream portal."

*Andromeda* surged away from the planet. The Nissari warships, caught with their pants down, did their best to catch up, but Dylan ordered missiles fired from the rear batteries. The ships that weren't disabled couldn't catch up.

"Brace for slipstream," Beka said as the slipstream flight controls folded around her. The ship lurched into the tangled web of the faster than light realm... and kept lurching.

"Beka - " Dylan said.

"Don't worry - " Beka said. "Just using a few tricks to make sure we lose anyone who jumps in after us."

Several nerve-wracking moments later, the *Andromeda* emerged from the stream. They waited for any of their pursuers to appear, but none did.

They were safe... for the moment.

"Good flyin', Boss!" Harper said. "I knew you'd get us outta that. Never doubted ya for a second!"

/

/

When she had *The Red Lady* safely in orbit of Infinity Atoll, Elizabeth Loveless pushed her pilot's chair back from the ship's controls and swiveled to her first mate. "All right, Rutger, what news? Is any of it good? Please say yes."

"Yes, some. Our friends were not too badly damaged in this encounter. And our employer has transitted from the slipstream."

A screen lit up, showing a squadron of Nissari fighters flanking a small, nondescript courier ship, closing on *The Red Lady's* position.

"That's not good news given that we are empty-handed, Rutger."

"No, my lady, but this might please our employer... " He handed her a flexie and explained the significance of it.

"Yes," Elizabeth said, "yes it might."

/

/

The fighters pealed off as the courier closed for a nose-to-nose docking with *The Red Lady,* and seen together like this, the difference between the two ships could not have been more striking. The *Red Lady* was larger, gaudier, and in terms of its armament, more lethal than the small, nondescript courier; if not for the fighter escort, the tiny starship would not have been noteworthy at all. But appearances can be deceiving; because of whom it carried, the courier was, in fact, the more dangerous of the two spacecraft.

When the ships had connected, Elizabeth, Rutger, and a handful of the mercenaries who were her crew gathered at the docking airlock one level below her ship's bridge. The ship's computer narrated the equalization of airlock pressure, the inner hatch slid open, and Elizabeth Loveless' employer stepped onto the deck.

Like the courier he'd arrived in, he was almost unremarkable, on the brink of unassuming - a small, Eurasian man with salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in a black suit of conservative cut. Yet two things kept him from vanishing into a crowd: one was his right eye. It was completely white, with neither iris nor pupil, and even glowed slightly; hair-thin tendrils could be seen pulsing under his skin above and below it. The other was the air about him. This was a man with oceans of blood on his hands, and no compunctions about shedding more. Even Elizabeth was a touch nervous around her benefactor. But the potential for incredible wealth and power the man brought with him excited her. And for the Red Lady, excitement won every time.

"Permission to come aboard, Captain Loveless," the man said in an almost polite voice.

Elizabeth took a half a step forward. "Permission granted, Mr. Sandoval. It is once again my pleasure to welcome you aboard *The Red Lady.*"

"Pleasure," Sandoval said; though his voice was still pleasant, only a fool would not have recognized his anger. "What about this situation is pleasurable, Captain? My captains - my *surviving* captains, I should say - tell me they have just had an encounter with the *Andromeda Ascendant,* and they have custody of the man you came to Infinity for. I do not recall paying you a considerable amount of money for that. Please, enlighten me as to the benefits of the mess we are in."

"If the *Andromeda* was here," Elizabeth explained, hoping she did not sound as nervous as she felt, "it was because Beka Valentine was following the same lead we were, so it must be good."

"Beka Valentine, Beka Valentine." Sandoval consulted a small computer woven into the sleeve of his suit. "Ah, yes, a former salvagier who is now Dylan Hunt's first officer. You are more concerned about her than her commander?"

"In this instance, yes. I'm sure Captain Hunt is hell on wheels when the *Andromeda* is going into battle... "

"I think we have had that demonstrated to our satisfaction."

"...but if you've studied how he handles negotiations, you'd know he's very uncomfortable doing anything else. This, interstellar salvage, is most definitely *anything else.* It's not Hunt's game. It's Beka's. And mine. If she isn't in command, she will make sure he does things her way. Count on it."

"I see. And what is Captain Valentine to you? You seem to know a great deal about her. A rival? A, what was the term, an 'arch enemy'?"

"A competitor. Not a threat to my position, but still very good at what she does, almost as good as me."

"Interesting. So, the vast sums of money I have paid you AND the damage to or destruction of a half a dozen of my ships in exchange for a competitor at the helm of one of the most powerful ships in the Known Universe validating 'our' lead. You will forgive me if that sounds like a very expensive second opinion."

"There's more; I thought you might find this interesting." Elizabeth handed Sandoval the flexie Rutger had shown her.

Sandoval stroked his chin as he read it... and then smiled. "I take it back, Captain Loveless. This has been a very profitable day. Very profitable indeed."


	2. Part 2

The *Andromeda's* astrogation room was about the size of the Command Center, with its own wall-screens at one end, and a holoprojection table in the middle that the ship's complement had gathered around. Bill Beckett tabbed some controls and a hologram appeared above the table depicting a potatoe-shaped asteroid with a cluster of domes at one end.

"The Wayist Monastery on asteroid Tau Theta 3 in the Alpha Centauri A solar system," Bill said, "the oldest Monastery in the Known Worlds."

"No!" Rev said. "The retreat on Sutter's World is older by 75 years -"

"Sutter's retreat wasn't founded by a bunch of cloak-and-dagger type Vedrans who'd been converted by the Anointed himself," Bill said. "And you know what the Anointed was doing there? Answering an invite by Da'an himself."

"But it's only four light years from Earth -" Harper protested.

"'Zactly," Bill said. "No one would think the Vedrans would be dumb enough to stash their greatest prize at the next star over from where they'd found it, so they hid it there, where no one would look. And it worked."

"So the asteroid is where the Shadow Cavalry hid the Mother Ship," Dylan said, a bit skeptical.

"Well, look for your yourself." Beckett tabbed more controls, and a schematic of the Taelon Mother Ship appeared next to the asteroid. Although about the same size as the *Andromeda,* the Mother Ship looked like it could have fit inside the rock with room to spare. "And before you say it, no, there's no hatch, but with Taelon Interdimensional Drive, you don't need one."

"This is foolishness!" Tyr thundered. "Why do we not have that technology?"

"Notoriously difficult to reverse engineer," Bill said. "In fact, almost impossible, especially with a live Taelon around to look innocent. Lucky us."

"But if the Vedrans are all dead," Trance said, "who kept the secret?"

"The Monastery inner circle," Bill answered. "Unless you're the abbot, his successor, or one or two others, you're not told - period." He smiled. "Nothing to stop a bored novice from sneaking around the wrong caves, though. AND nothing like having a cranky Taelon swear you to secrecy. Might have had an accident otherwise."

"So," Dylan said, "we take you to the Monastery and... what?"

"I can get us aboard," Bill said. "Don't worry. And we will find their medical database and transfer it to this ship. And then we have to destroy the Mother Ship."

"Excuse me?" Dylan asked.

"The Red Lady's workin' for the Nissari!" Bill said. "That means two things. One - Ronald Sandoval is finally dying... "

"Sandoval!?" Tyr said. "The human who betrayed his people to their conquerors? Alive after three thousand years?"

"Aye, courtesy of the Taelon biotech you guys want. When the Vedrans guarding him on Nissar Alpha died off, he wheedled his way into the human colony's power structure. Never you mind which little Hitler-wanna-be is in charge this week; Sandoval is the *real* power there. And if he's started aging, you can bet he wants the Mother Ship."

"And that would be 'two'?" Dylan said.

"No, Cap'n," Bill said. "'Two' would be that he's worked out what the Taelon Mother Ships is really for. Call it one of those cross-cultural misunderstandings. We heard 'mother ship' and thought it was primarily designed to be like the *Andromeda,* a big ship that acts as 'mother' to a flotilla of little ships. But the Taelons meant 'mother' as in their birth mother. They'd lost the ability to reproduce on their own, so that ship became a flying test-tube-Taelon factory."

"But how did they handle the genetic degradation?" Rev asked.

"My point exactly," Tyr said.

"They didn't," Bill said. "Da'an and the other companions, their seed was too thin to bring about another generation. That's why they were the last of their kind. But they left a lovely legacy - the Taelon Bioreactor, which can work with *anything* alive. Now, imagine if the Atavus had found that?"

"Uuuuuuhhhhhhrrrrrr," Harper shuddered.

"My point exactly," Bill said, "and Sandoval's not as thick as the Atavi were. And he probably also knows that after three thousand years, his body and the biotech have integrated at a molecular and genetic level - now one being with one genetic code. He steps in the bioreactor, you don't get a recharged Sandoval. You get a recharged Sandoval AND a whole new species just like him. Good news is, you'll have a very powerful ally against the Magog; bad news is, you'll trade the dinner table for chains.

"So the Mother Ship has to go, Captain. No question about it. Alternative is, Sandoval gets it, and if he gets it, we get a new long night for as long as he and his 'kiddies' are around - maybe forever. Not appealing, is it?"

"No," Dylan said. "So we have no choice. We recover the Mother Ship's data and destroy the ship. All right, let's - "

"Dylan," Beka said. "Can I have a word with you and Rommie?"

Dylan nodded; the others filed out.

"What is it?" Dylan said.

"I know we don't always see eye-to-eye," Beka said, "but in this case, you have to play things *my* way."

"Why?"

"Because I know this gig as well as you know strategy and 'Crazy Igor' maneuvers. Don't know what interstellar salvage was like in the Commonwealth, but these days, it's a cutthroat business - literally. And Lizzie isn't called 'The Red Lady' because she likes the color. You really gotta listen to me this time, Dylan."

"All right. Shall we... ?"

"Actually," Rommie said, "I'd like to have a word with Beka in private. It's personal."

Dylan looked between his first officer and his ship's avatar, smiled, and left.

"What is it, Rommie?"

"Actually, um... Well, Beka, I was monitoring Harper when we met Captain Loveless, and he seemed to have two conflicting emotional responses. Obviously, he doesn't like her any more than you do, but I felt something... else, and without betraying an confidences, I was wondering if you could - "

"Yes."

"'Yes' what?"

"Yes, Harper and Lizzie slept together. That 'yes.'"

"Oh. I see."

"Not quite. It was more of a one night - actually a one WEEK - stand, and she was hoping to get some info out of him on some jobs I had lined up, so she could swipe them. It worked, and obviously, their relationship didn't last much beyond Harper and me figuring that out."

"Um, yes, good. It's just that - "

"Let me guess," Beka said. "As annoying as Harper's infatuation with you can be some times, you're... bothered?... by the idea that it's because you look like somebody else?"

"Something like that."

"Don't worry about it, Rommie. Harper's known you long enough to know you're not Lizzie. In fact, I think you're better. She didn't care about him, but you do, and I can't think of anyone else besides Trance I would trust to look after him if something happened to me."

"Thanks, Beka. That means a lot to me."

Beka smiled and clapped the android on the shoulder. "C'Mon, we have a lot to do. Like the big man likes to say, 'Let's bring it.'"

/

/

When the *Andromeda* arrived within communications range of the Tau Theta 3 Monastery, Bill insisted on being the one to talk to ground control. "It'll be all right," he said.

After getting clearance for the mighty cruiser to dock, Bill added, "... and one more thing. Please convey the following message to the abbot: 'Prodigal William has returned.' It's very important you do it now."

"I will." The monk they'd been speaking to vanished from the screen.

Bill found himself the center of attention on the *Andrormeda's* bridge.

"A code phrase?" Beka asked.

"I was under the impression you left the Monastery under a cloud," Tyr said.

"Let's just say I sewed a silver lining into the cloud in case I needed it," Bill said. "Don't worry; I'm on your side. I *will* help you."

The ground control monk returned to the big screen; he looked a bit pale. "Sir, I have relayed your message to the abbot. He welcomes you home and will see you and your party at your convenience."

"Thank you, Ground Control," Bill said. "*Andromeda Ascendant* out." The poor monk vanished for good this time. "Halfway there, friends."

"Yeah," Beka said, programming docking vectors into the flight controls. Dylan looked at Bill for a moment, then turned back to his own control panels... but his thoughts were elsewhere.

/

/

"How do you think we should play this, Beka?" Dylan asked after the *Andromeda* had docked with the Monastery.

"Bill's going, obviously," Beka said. "I'll take Rev, Rommie, and Tyr with us."

The crew's heavy hitters. "You're expecting trouble?" Dylan asked.

"When Lizzie's around, always, and I really want to have The Man with Twelve Plans watching my back."

/

/

Except for the fact that it had been built on an asteroid (and when they were inside, Rommie remarked that yes, parts of the place were laid out like an old Vedran garrison, so that leant some credence to Bill's story) and protected from the vacuum of space by high domes, the Monastery was indistinguishable from the others Beka had visited, and even had an "outdoorsy" feel to its main areas. Bill lead them across the main courtyard - nothing between their heads and the dome, surrounded by a cloister and low buildings - then stopped before a simple wooden door with a sign, "Father Abbot" on it.

"You will all have to wait here," Bill said.

"Excuse me?" Beka said. "I don't remember that being in the plan. And if you keep this up, you'll make Tyr look transparent."

"Please, just trust - "

"I *don't* trust you! Now what is going on?"

"Beka... Seamus is my friend. I want to save him as much as you. But there are some things that must be kept secret. Don't worry - I'll just have a little chat with his nibs and we'll be conducted to the you-know-what. Won't take a moment."

"Well..."

"Maybe if I went along - " Rev offered.

"No, Brother!" Bill interrupted. "I have to do this alone. But on my honor as a member of the Sacred Order, you have nothing to fear from this."

"I believe him, Beka," Rev said.

"You would, Wayist," Tyr sneered.

"Don't see as we have much of a choice," Beka said.

Bill knocked on the abbot's door; it was opened for him and closed behind him with a solid thump. Beka, Tyr, Rev, and Rommie had nothing to do but stand there and wait, and they did not look at ease doing it. The little group of misfits attracted some looks from passing monks and nuns, but oddly enough, an exchange of head-bows with Rev seemed to put them at ease; Wayist regalia seemed to do everything, even for a Magog.

"Ok," Beka said, "Rommie, bring Dylan up to date on what's going on, and if you'd like to include any bad feelings you have about this, go right ahead, because I got a jillion of 'em and no radio in my head... "

/

/

"...so there's nothing more that my humanoid body and the others can do but wait at this point," Andromeda's hologram said, "although Beka's - and... my - suspicions about Mr. Beckett are growing."

"You think he's workin' for Lizzie?" Harper asked.

"Wait, I'll ask Beka... she says no, but he his hiding something. I concur."

"And I liked him," Trance said.

"All right," Dylan said. "Tell her to carry on as she sees fit but not to take unnecessary risks. We'll watch it from here."

The hologram nodded.

Dylan realized he had Harper's attention. "What, Mr. Harper?"

"NOW will you stop fidgeting, Boss? You've been driving me nuts for half an hour."

"I am not fidgeting," Dylan said.

"Yes, you are," Trance said. "You've been awful."

"I'd expect you two to agree, so let me go over your heads. Andromeda?"

"Yes, Dylan?" The main A. I. appeared on one of the big screens.

"Have I been fidgeting?"

"Yes, Dylan."

"Let me rephrase the question."

"It won't matter, Dylan."

"Best give up gracefully," Trance teased.

"It's not fidgeting," Dylan said; "it's maintaining readiness."

"Ok - " Harper said. "You owe me a lie. Not a big, ship-destroying one, but you have to let me off the hook at least once."

"It's not lying, Mr. Harper. I'm very concerned about what's happening. Or, I should say, NOT happening."

"Whaddya mean, Boss? Lizzie and her posse are nowhere to be seen."

"Exactly my problem," Dylan said. "That means either they haven't caught up to us yet, or -"

"Dylan!" Andromeda's image snapped from one of the screens. "I've detected several ships - multiple vectors all around us. It looks like they're - " A klaxon sounded. "Intrud - "

Suddenly, the hologram vanished; the black, faceless robot bodies fell to the deck; and every screen in the room displayed the High Guard's seal. The klaxons and Andromeda's voice fell silent.

"They're already here," Dylan, Trance, and Harper said as one.

/

/

"Rommie?" Beka said, as the android, apparently dazed, supported herself on one of the cloister's columns.

"Stand by," Rommie said. "Reconfiguring to standalone mode. Wait..." Rommie stood up, shaking her head to clear it. "Beka - my main A.I. - something's - "

Just then, Bill Beckett burst out of the abbot's office. "We have to get out of here, NOW!"

/

/

"Andromeda!" Dylan called out, his force lance drawn; still, no answer. "Harper - what's going on?"

"It looks like she's been put in safe mode, Dylan," Harper said from a control panel he'd coaxed into responding. "Rom Doll's A-OK, just -"

The entrances to the bridge opened and a mixture of Nissari troopers and Loveless' red-coated mercenaries surged in, training their weapons on Dylan, Harper, and Trance, surrounding them, even as the threesome drew their own weapons, ready for what might have been the last fight of their lives.

"You need not fear for your lady love, Boy," Rutger said mockingly as he swaggered in. "I have merely put her to sleep."

But it was the man who followed Rutger in, a small Eurasian man in a conservative, dark suit; with salt-and-pepper hair and an odd, all-white right eye, who got Dylan's attention.

"Ronald Sandoval, I presume," Dylan said.

"You presume correctly, sir," Sandoval answered. "I gather, then, that you are Dylan Hunt?"

"I am."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain; too bad we could not meet under different circumstances. Well, we are both busy men, so I will keep this simple: you and your crew will lower your weapons and come quietly, or you will all die." Sandoval pulled an ancient pocket watch from a jacket pocket. "I will give you some time to think about that. You have fifteen seconds."

Dylan didn't need fifteen seconds. "Lower your weapons."

"But Boss - !" Harper protested.

"Do it!" Dylan barked; he, Trance, and Harper allowed Sandoval's goons to take their guns.

"This isn't over," Dylan said, as much to Sandoval as to Harper.

"Oh, for you and your friends, it most certainly is." Sandoval turned to Rutger. "Bring them."

/

/

"We have company," Rommie said when she and the others were halfway back across the courtyard. She drew her force lance and deployed it to tonfa mode as Beka and Tyr drew their guns and Rev brought his walking staff up to a fighting position. An instant later, they heard the footsteps as Nissari troopers and Elizabeth's mercs surged from all around them, surrounding them.

"Hello again, Beka," Elizabeth Loveless said, stepping forward with her own pistol drawn. "In your place, I'd be tempted to see if I could take me with you, too, but going out in a blaze of glory would leave poor little Seamus all alone in the world, wouldn't it? You really ought to lower your weapons, though I wouldn't mind the target practice."

Beka didn't have to think about it very long.

"Do it," she said, lowering her own gun. The others followed suit.

Rommie found herself thinking of the way Tyr and Harper had fallen to the Magog, and realized it was because their situation now was about as hopeless.

/

/

Harper didn't struggle (too much) as two of Captain Elizabeth Loveless' guards dragged him through the narrow corridors of *The Red Lady,* into her cabin, and stopped him in front of the desk she was seated at.

"Have a seat," Elizabeth said.

"No thanks," Harper sneered. "I prefer to stand."

Elizabeth nodded; her men roughly forced Harper into a chair.

"Like I said, I prefer to sit," Harper said. "So, I guess this is where I get tempted by the Dark Side again? Twice in one week! This keeps up, I'll have to have my last name changed to Skywalker."

Something resembling a smile tugged at Elizabeth's lips. "Is that another one of your 'Earth things'? I missed that about you, I really did." The smile vanished. "But this isn't about temptation, Seamus, or, if I'm right about your meaning, betraying your friends. They've already lost, so there's nothing to betray. But you don't have to be on the losing side." She pushed a flexie and a stylus across the desk to him. "Sign it."

"What is it?"

"Your new contract for a position as an engineer's mate aboard the *The Red Lady,* and yes, there is a provision entitling you to any recovered Taelon technology that can aid the removal of your Magog larvae."

"How - "

"I keep tabs on my competitors, Seamus. You know that."

"I already got a contract with Beka."

"Oh? And your share of the *Andromeda* recovery was... what? I'd really like to know."

"I see you replaced the old silk wall hangings. Sorry, but these suck."

"Nothing. I thought so. Breach of contract; you could sue if she lived long enough - don't look at me like that; what did you expect? - but the point is you can sign on with anyone you want."

"And you're doing this... why? Out of the goodness of your heart? There's an oxymoron. Because you're secretly in love with me? I tend to doubt that."

"And you're right to. But I know good material when I see it, and you are good material, and you know I'm not wasteful.

"Look, I appreciate what Beka means to you. She got you off that hell hole and made a passable spacer out of you. You feel loyalty to her and you care for her, and those are good things, Seamus. I never said they weren't.

"But what you fail to understand - or won't admit to yourself - is that you've gone as far as you can with her. She *is* as good at this game as I am, but why does she still have that old rust bucket of a ship, or at least, why doesn't she have it fixed up real nice at one of the drifts? Why are her father's debts hanging over her like a sword of Damocles while I attained all the wealth and influence - if not more - you yourself told me you desired years ago? Because the woman handicaps herself. She crews her ship with hard-luck cases she feels sorry for, and turns her nose up at potentially profitable jobs just because she doesn't like whom she'd be working with or for. Hell, to this day, I'm surprised Gerentex didn't come back and tell me she turned him down; she must have been desperate."

"What - you - " Harper stammered. "YOU sent Gerentex to US?"

"He came to me with his quest to find a High Guard Ship of the Line," Elizabeth said, "but he found my fees too high. I knew Beka had fallen on hard times and sent him her way, on the condition he never said so, of course. Why so surprised, Seamus? I'm not totally heartless. I truly respect Beka as a member of our profession. I simply will do whatever it takes to make sure no other member of our profession makes it to the same prize I desire."

"Yeah, well, we seem to have done well since then, or haven't you heard? We're restoring the Commonwealth. That's pretty good compensation, I'd say."

"Maybe so. Or maybe Dylan Hunt is just another stray Beka took in. So's the *Andromeda,* come to think of it. Why do you think she joined his quest - or better, why didn't she just kill Hunt and take the ship? That's what I would have done."

"You're the fount of knowledge; you tell me."

"She felt sorry for them. But no one should feel sorry for you, Seamus. You're your own man now, even if you don't know it; you're ready to make your own decisions and make your own scores. And this is The. Big. Score, Seamus! It's not just about one ship; when Sandoval fires up the bioreactor, it will be about a new order in the Universe. Those who stand with him will be on the ground floor. Those who oppose him... You are a bright, nice, kid - and, to be honest, not bad in the sack - and I would hate for you to do anything against your best interests. I urge you, sign on with me. You won't regret it."

Harper picked up the flexie and appeared to consider it. Then he wadded it up and threw it back in Elizabeth's face.

She sighed. "Don't say I never gave you a chance, Seamus." She turned to the guards flanking him. "Take him to Rutger."

/

/

Sandoval stood at the end of the gangplank extending from the catwalk that ringed the cavernous space inside the asteroid that enclosed the Taelon Mother Ship. He ignored the activity behind him, as Captain Loveless and her first officer, Rutger, busied themselves over the chair young Master Harper was strapped in, gagged so he didn't bite his own tongue, equipment on his chest, and a cable running to the data port in his neck. No, Sandoval contemplated the locked hatch of the Taelons' gossamer starship. It was as powerful, if not more so, than the *Andromeda* (which it faintly resembled - Shadow Cavalry influence on the Glorious Heritage class' designers?) yet still reminded him of a bioluminescent undersea creature on steroids.

"Soon," he said, running his fingers along the hatch. Three thousand years a "guest" of generations of Shadow Cavaliers had made him something of a stick-in-the-mud; even when, after the last Vedrans had died off, he had begun to build his empire on Nissar Alpha, he had not concerned himself with the fate of the Taelon Mother Ship. If one were virtually immortal, then there was time for such matters later, yes? But the "virtually" part had become painfully obvious when Sandoval had looked in the mirror one day and, after three thousand years, seen his first gray hair. Now, he blessed that day, for in researching the Taelon Mother Ship, he had learned its true purpose... and his true destiny: not just to be the power behind the throne on a backwater planet or even in a galaxy-spanning empire, but the progenitor and leader of the dominant force in Creation. Everything in his life had lead to this moment. True, he was jaded enough not to let excitement get the better of him, but he held all the cards; Hunt and his band of misfits held none. Sandoval was sure that now, nothing stood between him and his destiny.

"Mr. Sandoval?" Captain Loveless said, coming up behind him.

He turned to face her. "Yes, Captain?"

"Rutger says Master Harper is prepared, Sir, and the chair can be activated by your personal computer; and our guests are arriving." As Elizabeth Loveless spoke, a squad of guards marched the remainder of the *Andromeda's* pathetic little crew off the catwalk and down the gangplank, stopping them a few meters short of Harper's chair.

Beka almost jumped out of her skin at the sight of her friend and engineer. "LIZZIE! What have you done to him!? I swear, if you've hurt him - "

"Your crewman is well for the moment... " Sandoval said, coming over to the prisoners.

In his chair, Harper nodded and managed something that sounded like 'I'm good, Boss' through his gag.

"...but I remind you and Captain Hunt that neither of you are in a position to make threats," Sandoval went on, "and neither of you is any good to your crew dead. If you need further reason to be silent during the proceedings, I would think that is a good one. Captain Loveless, if you please?"

A gesture from Elizabeth, and Bill Beckett was separated from the *Andromeda's* crew. With two guards at his side, he immediately went to Harper's side. "How ye doin', son?"

Harper nodded quickly, though there was fear in his eyes.

"Don't worry, Lad; we'll get you out of this."

Another nod.

Bill raised his gaze to Sandoval, who had come over to face him.

"Hello, old friend," Sandoval said. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Not long enough," Beckett answered. "I'd've thought you'd have used the time to better yourself."

"Oh, I have, I have. And you will assist me in continuing the process. You will give me access to the Taelon Mother Ship."

"No."

"Is that your final answer?"

"Yes."

"Even at the cost to these... 'innocent people' you have brought into this?"

"Looks like you're not givin' me much of a choice, doesn't it?"

"Very well." Sandoval tabbed his sleeve computer. "I'm told this will not take long."

Beckett's gaze flashed between Harper and Sandoval. "What have you done!?"

Harper still tried to project some amount of confidence, but he started sweating. Something in the empty space next to him made him jump.

On the other side of the line of guards, Rommie tugged at Dylan's sleeve. "Dylan, there's something wrong - " She broke off. "What are you doing to him!?"

"You don't know?" Elizabeth said. "If you'd bedded him, Andromeda, he would have told you himself - the little dear is such a blabbermouth when he gets all cuddly. Still, given that Rutger found your I/O protocols all over his interface - mildly slutty of you, my dear - I'm surprised you didn't figure it out for yourself."

"Well, then," Dylan said, "why don't you enlighten us?"

"All right," Elizabeth said. "Poor little Seamus Harper suffers from an acute form of paranoid schizophrenia - he hears voices, has hallucinations, and believes everyone, from the Vedran Empress down to house plants, is out to kill him. The Than doctors the Nietzscheans allow in the refugee camps on Earth installed a network of biochips in his brain to stabilize his brain chemistry, so he can function, and the data port is used to monitor the network and reprogram it. Obviously, he's learned to use it to do... other things... but it's primary purpose is to keep him sane."

"And you've just switched it off," Trance breathed.

"No, actually," Rutger said, coming to his lady's side. "I reprogrammed it to exaggerate his symptoms instead of relieve them. He is now having the worst psychotic break in history, and I can keep him alive, in that state, for as long as I want. There may be nothing left of his personality matrix in the long run, but he will still live in hell." The cybernetic sadist paused. "Oh, and Captain Hunt - did you know that the worst thing you can do to a High Guard A. I. is to make it watch one of its charges suffer?"

Just then, Harper started screaming. Rommie could bear no more and shoved through the guards, lunging towards Harper. While the guards made sure none of the others could help, Rutger caught Rommie meters short of her engineer and held her in a bear hug from behind. The android started thrashing, so hard you could hear her servos whine, and it looked like she would literally tear herself apart trying to free herself, to help her friend.

"You know how to stop this," Sandoval said to Beckett.

"You stop this, Sandoval!" Beckett pleaded. "These games will not profit you in the end - "

"You speak to me of games?" Sandoval shouted; he was losing his patience. "You first. Time to stop playing dress-up, Da'an."

Suddenly, the *Andromeda's* crew found their attention rivetted to Big Bill Beckett; even Rommie stopped thrashing for a moment.

"Very well," Beckett said. His skin and clothing vanished, revealing a form made of light and energy. It narrowed into a tall, long-limbed figure with an oval head, and then new skin and clothes appeared - dark blue, sparkling clothes on a hairless humanoid with light, almost reflective skin, deep blue eyes, and an almost placid expression.

A Taelon.

The last of the Companions.

Da'an.

"Surprised, my dear?" Rutger said in Rommie's ear. "You must have not scanned deeply enough, or questioned the false life signs. Or maybe you are not as good at this as you think you are."

An angry grimace passed over Rommie's face. "You're going to pay for this, you bastard!" She started to struggle again, but Rutger's hold didn't slacken.

On the other side of the guards, Beka noticed Dylan's reaction... which wasn't the same one she'd had. "You're not surprised? Why am I not surprised you're not surprised?"

"He knew too much," Dylan said, "more than the 'defrocked Wayist' story could account for. Add in the residual Taelon energy and the remoteness of his diner, it was obvious."

"Yeah. Right."

"Now, Sandoval," Da'an said, speaking in the measured pace, and moving with the measured grace, of a Taelon, "will you respond in kind? There is nothing in the mother ship for you. Release these people. Return to your home. Live out the last of your days as fully as you can. Please, for your sake, I beg you."

"How contrite, how... empathetic you sound," Sandoval said. "But even then, you still presume you're in the position to give me orders, don't you? Well, not anymore! I am in charge here. *I* give the orders. You WILL give me access to the mother ship; and if you don't you WILL watch these people suffer."

Da'an closed his eyes and turned his gaze from Sandoval, energy flashing under his pseudoskin.

"Harper is just the beginning," Sandoval went on. "Rutger here knows more about inflicting pain, and maintaining it, than you or I or even the Atavus forgot. Even Nietzscheans and Magog have their vulnerabilities. I can pay him to keep them that way for the rest of their lives... which would be the rest of *my* life, since I don't believe there's such a thing as a living witness, but I still have a few YEARS left. And you. Will. Watch, Da'an, you will watch every moment of their suffering. And I will enjoy watching your heart - if you have one - bleed for them."

"So, this is not only about your own aggrandizement. You seek vengeance."

"Seek it? I yearn for it. You were always in my way, Da'an; allying yourself with the resistance, disrupting Zo'or's - and my - designs. I was so glad when I thought you were gone; I should have known you wouldn't obligingly stay 'dead.'"

"But if I give you what you seek, these people will die."

"Yes... but quickly, painlessly. It's that simple. Assist me and they go to 'the next level' without any agony; resist me, and they suffer for as long as it amuses me. Decide!"

"Execution now versus execution later," Da'an said. "Not a pleasant set of choices."

"Well, I wasn't planning to kill them right away," Sandoval said. "I would have my enemies witness my apotheosis before they die. But that is essentially correct."

"And what of Mr. Harper? Will his last moments be spent witnessing the horrors your torturer has unleashed from the blackest depths of his soul? Or will you restore him to sanity so he can prepare himself for the next level?"

Sandoval smiled. "You see how simple that was in the end? You open the ship, and I will restore Mr. Harper's biochips to their normal operation."

"Harper first."

"No." Sandoval clasped his hands in front of him and rocked up onto his toes and back. "Remember the old saying we had, 'My way or the highway'? It applies here."

("Oh my God," Beka groaned, "he's full of the same crap Harper is.")

Da'an shook his head, orange light flashing under his skin, clearly torn over the stark choices Sandoval offered him. But with Harper's screams echoing through the huge chamber, and his android friend still fighting to get free, to save him, even if she tore herself to shreds in the process...

He really had no choice.

"Very well, Sandoval. You win." Da'an walked to the mother ship, pressed his fingers on a dark plate next to the hatch, and spoke in his people's whispery, musical language. The ship answered in kind and the hatch... vanished. The way was open. "Now, your end of the bargain."

"Of course." Sandoval tabbed his sleeve computer, pursing his lips as he read its response. "New software dumped; old programming reloaded and restarted." He looked over his shoulder at Harper. "It will take a few moments for him to recollect all his marbles, but he'll be all right."

"I'd like to have my medic verify that," Dylan called out.

"Of course, Captain." Sandoval gestured; Trance was allowed through the guards and she raced to Harper's chair. "And Mr. Harper's android friend can be released if she behaves herself, Rutger."

"I think she knows who's boss, don't you, my 'Rom Doll'?"

Rommie wasn't sure how Rutger knew one of Harper's pet names for her, but the way he twisted it only made her more angry than she'd been. But she nodded; Rutger let her go. She went to the chair and watched Trance fuss over Harper in precisely the way Rommie knew she was incapable of. But at least Harper's screams had subsided.

"Can we get this thing out of his mouth?" Trance said. "It looks real uncomfortable."

"I have no objection," Sandoval said.

Rutger came over and removed the gag, one of those oily smiles on his face. "But this" - he tapped the plug in Harper's data port - "stays. So I may keep an eye on my old friend."

"Don't do me any favors," Harper said.

"The children stay here," Sandoval announced, "insurance of the good behavior their crew mates." He paused. "And so does the Magog. No offense, Brother, but I prefer not to have one of your kind too close to me at times like this."

Rev nodded at the centuries-old mastermind.

"The rest, with us," Sandoval said. "Da'an, lead the way." He, Elizabeth, Rutger, and the balance of the *Andromeda's* crew and their guards followed the Taelon into the starship he had once ridden to Earth. Only two guards were left behind to keep an eye on Trance, Rev, and Harper.

Rev stood just behind Trance as she monitored his vitals on her com gauntlet, and he noticed the guards crowding in on them. "Give us some space, please. My young friend is under enough stress as it is."

"No tricks, Magog," one of the guards, a red-coated merc from Elizabeth's crew, spat. "I already have one Magog-hair rug, and I wouldn't mind another one."

Rev snarled in reply, but the guards backed off.

"Thanks, Rev," Trance said. "Harper, how you doing?"

"Well... Trance, were you and Rev sent to bring me to the Galactic Emperor so I could fight a lightsabre duel with my father?"

Trance had no idea what that meant. "Uhhh... no."

"Ok, that voice doesn't know what he's talking about and I can ignore him. Her. It. Never mind. Trance, lean forward a little; let me see down your shirt."

"Harper - !"

"Just do it!" He hissed.

Rolling her eyes, Trance leaned over enough to give Harper a better view of her cleavage. Harper stared for a second, then squeezed his eyes shut.

"Ok," he said when he opened them.

"What was that about?" Trance asked.

"I've loaded one of my sexual fantasies into my interface's main buffer; if Rutger takes a peek, he'll think I'm thinking nasty thoughts and, I hope, not look closer. We can talk. Rev, I want you to distract the guards."

"How?" Rev said.

"I dunno! Talk to them, convert them, persuade them to make their wives bake something for the monastic bake sale, but KEEP. THEM. OVER. THERE."

Rev nodded, then turned and wandered over to the guards in an affable manner; Trance and Harper heard him say, "I apologize for being so sharp earlier. Tell me, what do you know about The Way... ?"

"Ok, Trance," Harper said. "Reach inside my jacket. Feel that zippered pocket? Open it and pull out what's inside."

She did so and found a small, plastic box.

"Open it."

She did; it was full of tiny tools. "What am I supposed to do with these?"

"You're going to wire this rig to your com gauntlet, and that will let me jack into the *Andromeda's* central computer and wake her up."

"But won't Rutger know when that happens?"

"I hope so, Darlin'; I hope so..."

/

/

Da'an kept his word and lead the others to the bioreactor's central core. It was a large, circular room with what appeared to be two huge glass flowers, one on the floor and one directly above it in the ceiling. Sandoval ordered that the captives be held by the wall as he contemplated the mechanism.

"Yesss," he hissed. He turned and walked to the control panels that lined the room. At his touch, the controls responded, the flowers began to glow, and a low, distant rumbling began.

"Bear witness to this moment," he said, removing his jacket; Dylan and his crew could see that from the shoulders down, and with the exception of his hands, Sandoval's body was a mishmash of human flesh and glowing white tissue and tendrils. "I was born in a time when mankind considered interstellar travel a fantasy, when a journey to one of the planets in our own solar system was considered a controversial and expensive undertaking. I became a servant of those who arrived from beyond the stars claiming to be our 'Companions,' claiming to help us. But all were but steps on the road, steps leading to this inevitable moment, to the destiny the Universe intended for me."

He stepped onto the center of the lower flower. Tendrils shot from his chest and back, some to the flower in the ceiling, others to the platform he was standing on. The light in the Taelon constructs began to pulse in the glowing parts of his body. The huge flower petals began to move from the floor and the ceiling; it became apparent they would interlink to form a pod surrounding Sandoval.

"I am the alpha and the omega," Sandoval said, "all that was, is, and ever shall be. I, who was born in the shell of a man, shall take my rightful place among the gods... as their leader."

/

/

Harper felt it when he had the connection to the *Andromeda* through Trance's com gauntlet and shut his eyes. He plunged into the virtual world, manifesting his virtual self on one of its many streets. The virtual cityscape looked the same as every, only the sky had no activity in it, and every surface was emblazoned with the High Guard seal.

"Ok," he said. "Andromeda Ascendant, this is your chief engineer Seamus Zelazny Harper. Switch from safe mode to active and restart A.I. persona."

"Access code required," the ship's voice - Rommie's voice - answered.

"I don't have an access code... Dammit!" It looked like his plan was -

"Access code accepted." The ground shuddered under his feet as the High Guard seals vanished, replaced by numbers and symbols; data streams whizzed past and around him; and clouds of files began to race through the sky, driven by their computational winds. Light rose up through the ground in front of him, forming into a huge wireframe of a human's upper body, which molded itself into a female form. Skin, clothes, and hair mapped onto the shape. And she opened her eyes.

Andromeda was awake.

/

/

Standing next to Dylan, Rommie felt her main A. I. return to awareness, and did her best to betray no sign as she dumped her memories of recent events into her core personality.

Rutger also felt it - and was momentarily puzzled. Wasn't Harper fantasizing about his purple friend? Then he felt the data stream into the *Andromeda*... and the mainframe's reactivation. Well, so Harper was trying to show how good he was; Rutger had been hoping for something like this. He would slap Harper down and crush his spirit once and for all. No need to alert Elizabeth or the guards; he would deal with this himself.

"My lady, if I may... ?"

Elizabeth nodded absently, her eyes transfixed on the bioreactor as its petals slowly closed around Sandoval.

Rutger shut his eyes.

/

/

"Receiving download... " Andromeda's core personality went livid. "That son of a - Harper! Are you all right?"

"On the mend, Darlin'."

"Oooh, wait 'til I get my hands on that - "

Rutger materialized next to Harper. "You, my dear, will not be getting your hands on anyone - "

"I don't think so," Rommie said. A red beam came out of the sky and struck Rutger; he screamed, his virtual form flickering and vibrating.

"Rommie," Harper said, "have I ever told you you're beautiful when you're mad as hell?"

"Save the flattery for later, when I feel like sparring. I was going to send this piece of biological waste packing with a splitting headache, but if you have anything painful you would like to do to him, be my guest."

"Your wish is my command." Harper strolled over to Rutger, then reached out, and his hand vanished into Rutger's head; the cyborg screamed even more. Harper twisted and strained, seeming to be feeling for something, and then yanked his hand out, now holding a geometric shape. "He's all yours, darlin'."

The red beam intensified, and Rutger howled in agony as his virtual body seemed to catch fire, burning into a swirl of red sparks that vanished on the digital winds.

/

/

Rutger jerked as if he'd received an electrical shock; he collapsed at Elizabeth's feet, the smell of burned flesh hanging around him.

/

/

Harper opened his hand; the geometric shape floated up, unfolding and expanding, until it was a rectangle at Rommie's eye level.

"Did I do it right, Babe?" Harper asked. "*The Red Lady's* access codes?"

"And the Nissari communication protocols." She smiled. "I'm going to enjoy this. You get back."

"See ya, Darlin'!" Harper blew her a kiss and vanished.

"Yes," Rommie said. "I am going to have a LOT of fun... "

/

/

Harper opened his eyes. "Rev - NOW!"

The Magog went into action. In less than five seconds, both guards were incapacitated. Then Rev and Trance began to unstrap Harper from his torture chair.

/

/

"Rutger?" Elizabeth said, as her cybernetic second and lover struggled to get off the floor.

"My lady," he said, "the High Guard ship - "

"My lady!" one of her guards broke in. "Our coms are down." Sandoval's Nissari troopers were also poking at their communicators.

There was just enough confusion in the enemy ranks for Tyr and Dylan to see a chance and they took it. They attacked the nearest guards, disarmed them, and began firing at the others. As Elizabeth's and Sandoval's men dove for what cover there was, Rommie disabled two guards, kept a gauss rifle for herself, and tossed another one to Beka. The two groups ended up on opposite sides of the bioreactor core, firing around it. It was obvious that it was bulletproof; it not only acted as cover during the gun fight, but seemed to protect Sandoval pretty well, too.

And the petals were almost closed.

/

/

Harper picked up a gauss rifle from one of the fallen guards. "C'mon!"

"Wouldn't it be better to - ?" Rev started, but Harper was already running into the mother ship, Trance hot on his heels after scooping up a gun for herself.

"You DO have a twisted sense of humor," Rev hissed, taking off after them. Not only would he have to keep his young charges out of trouble, but they would probably need his sense of smell to retrace the others' path.

/

/

The first thing the *Andromeda* did with the access codes she and Harper had hacked from Rutger's mind was order all the Nissari and *Red Lady* guards on the Monastery (except those on the Mother Ship) back to the main docking airlock... where they were confronted by squads of Andromeda's black robot bodies, all bearing force lances. A straight fire fight could have gone either way, but thanks to Rev's Divine, the mercenaries and soldiers were not in the mood; they surrendered without a fight.

While this was going on, Andromeda seized control of *The Red Lady;* it undocked from the Monastery and began to attack the Nissari ships, whose captains, understandably, took that and their inability to communicate with their troops as a sign they had been double-crossed. The Nissari pursued the crimson pirate ship as it raced for open space... then turned and attacked. But outnumbered and outgunned, the end was never in doubt; under fire from the frigates and fighters, *The Red Lady* exploded.

Then the Nissari captains and fighter pilots noticed something coming up behind them. Something very big, very silver...

...and very, very ticked off.

"I am the Andromeda Ascendant!" said the brunette woman who appeared on all their monitors. "I have had an extremely bad day, and I am in the mood to blow some crap up. You all look like crap to me, so you've been nominated. If you don't think you can live through that, get lost!"

She opened up with her offensive missiles and sent her combat drones after the fighters. Surprised and out of position, the Nissari were no match, and Andromeda began to go through them like a hot knife through butter. The Nissari commanders did the only sane thing they could do - order the retreat. Andromeda waited just long enough to be sure the last of the enemy ships had jumped to the slipstream, then did a hard 180 and raced back to the asteroid. Her sensors told her something was very wrong with the Taelon Mother Ship.

And the data was already several minutes old.

/

/

"Go!" Dylan said. They'd taken out enough of Elizabeth's men, she and Rutger pinned down, that they saw a chance to race for the door. Tyr and Dylan charged, firing madly, the others bringing up the rear; the Nietzschean and the *Andromeda's* captain covered Beka, Rommie, and Da'an as they rushed through the door; Da'an tabbed a panel and the door closed.

Elizabeth fired at it several times, but the effectors bounced off. "DAMN!"

Then the petals closed. Sandoval sighed as the bioreactor pulsed to life around him. "Captain Loveless!"

Elizabeth turned to face her benefactor.

"In spite of your bungling, you have served me well," Sandoval said, "and there is one more service you can perform. Are you aware that this bioreactor needs some raw material to complete the activation sequence?"

Elizabeth's jaw dropped; before she could do or say anything, a beam from the ceiling mechanisms struck her in the chest. Her flesh began to whither.

"LIZ!" Rutger shouted. He got to his feet, tried to pull his captain free, and the beam enveloped him, too, devouring both of them. In the end, there was nothing left but their clothing and the cybernetic components of Rutger's body, which fell to the floor as soon as the beam switched off.

/

/

"Dylan - " Rommie said. "Loveless and Rutger - I can't feel their life signs anymore."

"Sandoval has used them to bring the bioreactor up to full power," Da'an said, consulting a wall panel.

Dylan and Tyr spun at the sound of approaching footsteps - and almost shot Rev, Harper, and Trance.

"Hey - whoa!" Dylan said, quickly aiming his gun at the ceiling.

"Whatever it is, I didn't have time to do it," Harper said. "I've been all tied up."

Rommie smiled at her engineer. "You feeling better?"

"Yeah... 'Dammit'?"

"I had to use *something* as an identifier, Harper, and to be honest, I thought the idea was kinda funny."

"Yeah? Don't quit your day job."

"This is all well and good," Tyr said, "but may I remind all assembled that we have failed to prevent Sandoval from seizing the bioreactor?"

"Duly noted," Dylan said. "We'll have to use the *Andromeda's* missiles to blow this place to smithereens and hope we can get the TMS before Sandoval gets it out of here. Rev, you will have to coordinate -"

"There is no need," Da'an said. "Everything is proceeding as it should."

"Wait - you're WORKING for him?" Harper yelped, voicing everyone else's suspicions.

"Not quite," Da'an answered. "It would be more accurate to say Sandoval has us right where I want him."

Tyr caught on first. "This place is a mouse trap!"

"I knew Sandoval would seek out this ship one day," Da'an said. "I have rigged the bioreactor so that, on command, it will create an imbalance in the interdimensional drive. This ship, and all who remain aboard, will cease to exist."

"And just who is supposed to be issuing that command?" Dylan asked.

Da'an just stared at him.

"No - wait - " Harper said. "Bill - Da'an - I can hack the system -"

"No. It must be done manually."

"The I'll stay," Harper said.

"NO!" Rommie shouted. "You are NOT throwing your life away, not after we've come this far!"

"Your android friend is correct," Da'an said. "Seamus, I am very old, and very tired. I have lived well beyond the span of my people, for this day - when the last vestiges of our occupation of your homeworld can be expunged. But I have valued your friendship, and I did not forget why we came. Speak to the abbot; I have translated and transcribed much of this ship's library, including the medical and genetic database on your people. We never encountered the Magog, but I pray it helps you find a cure."

"We could use a little more than that," Dylan said. "You may still have a lot to offer."

Da'an smiled sadly. "When my people faced a threat as dire, for us, in its way, as the Magog, we made our first mistake by fleeing to Earth, and made more mistakes when we were there. I have nothing to offer except a litany of what *not* to do. If you do not do as we did, that will be legacy enough."

Dylan smiled and nodded; there would be no swaying the old Taelon.

Da'an turned to Harper. "Goodbye, old friend." He stuck his hand out.

Harper shook it - and shuddered as if a jolt of energy passed through him. "What - what was - "

"Go now, Captain," Da'an said, releasing Harper's hand. He watched as Dylan and the others raced down the corridor; Harper was the last to go, backing away reluctantly, but then turning and running after his friends.

"The Universe is yours now," Da'an said softly. "Do not abuse it as we did." He turned and touched a door control panel, opening the door to the bioreactor core. The pod had begun to sink into the floor. Da'an stepped into the room.

Sandoval smiled from inside the pod. "I've waited a long time for this, Da'an. You will finally serve me." An absorbtion beam fired from the ceiling, enveloped the Taelon...

...and nothing happened.

The beam cut out, and another, stronger one fired, with still no effect. That one cut, too.

"Well, it doesn't matter now!" Sandoval shouted. "Let the others scamper - I've won! I've achieved my destiny!"

"Yes, you have," Da'an said, turning to a control panel. He entered the final sequence. The walls turned red, a klaxon sounding, the floor shaking, the ship's voice whispering an alert in Da'an's language.

"Interdimensional drive - " Sandoval said (the pod was more than halfway into the floor). "Da'an - what have you done!?"

"I am wiping the Universe clean of our stain," Da'an said.

"NO!" Sandoval screamed. "I am the alpha and the omega! All that was, is, and ever shall be! I can not die. I CAN NOT DIIIIIEEEEEEE...!"

/

/

The Taelon Mother Ship's deck shook and shuddered under their feet as Dylan and his crew raced down the corridors, to the airlock. They rushed out, pounding down the gangplank and along the catwalk, as lightning and storms of energy began to flash on the ship and through it.

Dylan spotted an alcove just ahead of them in the stone wall. "In here - brace yourselves!" They charged into a small, stone room filled with machinery and work tables; Tyr pulled the old, rusted door shut and they all got to cover under anything. Dylan put his head down and covered his ears as the noise in the Mother Ship's hangar began to build, a screaming roaring that sounded like the world was ending.

Perhaps it was.

/

/

At the end, as the interdimensional drive's energies began to consume him, Da'an shut Sandoval's incessant screaming from his thoughts and focused on the memories of his human friends from long ago, who had paid the ultimate price for the Taelons' cowardice and one human's megalomania...

...Renee, who, Da'an had later learned, had continued the fight, never knowing - or caring - that it had been lost the instant the Atavus arose...

...the girl, Street, who if alive today, might have filled the void in Master Harper's heart...

...Augur, another genius whose ego matched his intelligence...

...Liam and his poor mother, Siohban Beckett, whose lives had been sacrificed to destinies neither fully understood...

...but most of all, Da'an thought of William, the human protector he had known for far too briefly, whom he had begun to think of as a pupil and a friend...

...and Lily... if only...

"I am coming home, my friends," Da'an said. "See you soon."

/

/

The noise outside the little stone room got louder and louder; the walls shook and dust fell from the ceiling.

Then there was loud "BANG!" and the sound of air rushing past the door to fill an empty space.

Then all was quiet.

"Tyr," Dylan hissed.

Tyr pushed the door open a crack, peeked out, the pushed it all the way open.

The Taelon Mother Ship was gone.

"Everyone all right?" Dylan asked, slowly pulling himself to his feet.

"All present and accounted for!" Trance chirped.

"Speak for yourself," Harper said. "My shorts are casualties of war."

Slip, slip, hook-cross-hook, bob and weave, jab, jab-cross, jab-hook-cross... Beka danced around the silver punching bag in hydroponics, her padded gloves making thwapping noises as she hit it.

"Anybody I know?" Dylan asked, coming up behind her in sweats and a tank top, a basketball under his arm. "Or just the Universe in general?"

Beka stopped punching and turned to the *Andromeda's* captain. "What's the word?"

"Harper and Rommie are still sorting through the Taelon medical data," Dylan said. "They say there may be some promising leads..." He shrugged.

"So it was worth it," Beka said.

"Yes."

"Right."

"So, then, what did that bag do to you?"

"This? Oh... I was thinking, Dylan - what if Daddy had found Da'an all those years ago? How much good would have been done with their medical knowledge by now on top of saving my mother? Or what if he'd found you and Rommie when I was a kid? How much closer would your Commonwealth be to reality by now?"

Dylan just bounced his ball three times as he looked at her.

"Y'know what, Beka? I'm not going to answer that question. In fact, I'm never going to answer questions like that again. Hand-holding was not in my mission brief when I got this job, and it's time you guys stood on your own two feet." Dylan started walking towards his basketball court. "From now on, your angst, your problem. Hey, I like that! I think I'll have it translated into Latin or Vedran and added to the ship's coat of arms."

Beka folded her arms as she watched Dylan start to shoot some hoops. "'Kay, what's got into him?"

/

/

"It still tingles," Harper said.

"Taelon energy," Trance said. "It'll be with you your whole life."

Rommie stood around the corner from where Harper and Trance were sitting on stools. She'd come down to the machine shop to talk to him... and with Trance there, had justified her presence by saying she had to "take inventory." Now listening to Harper and Trance, she hoped some good came of the medical database, because now she could hear for herself how well Trance related to Harper... and he related to her. Filling her shoes if something happened to her wouldn't be difficult. It would be impossible.

"Wow. Still, Trance, you think you know somebody... "

"Da'an was your friend, Harper. That's the important thing."

"I guess. I keep thinkin' 'bout Lizzie, though."

"What? Harper, you're not - "

"No, it's not like that. But when Satrina was here and tempted me to join Ol' Red Eyes, there was an instant when I thought, 'Why not? What do I owe these guys?' But I resisted in the end. But then Lizzie shows me that contract and tells me why I should bail out on you guys... and it was a lot harder that time. Everything she told me made sense. What if three's the charm, Trance? What if the next time someone comes to turn me against you guys, I can't resist?"

"It won't happen, Harper."

"Know something I don't?"

"Yes, I know you." Rommie heard a kiss, probably on his cheek. "I gotta run."

"Later, Purple Princess!"

Trance popped around the corner. "'Bye, Rommie!" she said as she went by and out the door.

"Rommie?" Harper came 'round the corner. "You need something, Doll?"

"No, I uh - I have to - "

"You all right?" Harper came over to her, worry in his eyes. "You've been acting a little funny lately. Everything ok?"

"No, I'm ok..."

What had Dylan said? The only way to change things was to do something. *Anything.*

"I won't let anyone hurt you again," Rommie blurted.

"What?"

"No one will touch you," she rambled on, but she had to say it. "I won't let them. They'll have to go through me to get to you. And I'll put them in a universe of hurt."

"Rommie- I -" Caught off guard, Harper's mask dropped and she saw the look in his eyes that said he had seen too much in his young life. "That's a dangerous promise to make, Rommie."

"Maybe, but I can be pretty dangerous, too. And it's about time the universe found out how dangerous I can be when I'm protecting my own."

"Gee, I- " Harper smiled. "Thanks, Rommie, that's - thanks."

"You're welcome." Rommie smiled back, not sure if she was getting the hang of this friendship thing or if she had made a fool of herself. But she felt better than she had for weeks, and maybe that was enough for now.

THE END


End file.
